Perfect Love and Perfect Trust.

Blessings Darlings!

The oft-bandied about Wiccan phrase we're looking at today is "Perfect Love and Perfect Trust". 

Can imperfect people do anything perfectly?  And ... love and trust in who or what?

Let's start with an easier part of this.  WHERE and WHEN do you need to have perfect love and perfect trust?  Well, the only time that the phrase is used (and I'm talking about in the 'general Pagan community - I'm not talking about what is oathbound and/or in hand-copied lineaged BOS's) is when entering a circle.  Even then the only time I've seen that challenge given (that I recall) is to an initiate/member when they are undergoing initiation/membership ritual.  Again - that is MY experience.  Other than at that time, I've not seen a knife at anyone's chest.  Your mileage may vary. 

I've certainly not seen it at open rituals anywhere.  Have you?  The logistics of challenging everyone in at ritual with 150 people boggles the mind.  [Okay, I just ended up distracted by figuring out the logistics.  Many folks handling the challenge, but you'd still need either a HUGE opening in a pre-cast circle (making the work of the folks casting and holding the circle in place EXTREMELY difficult if not impossible, or you'd cast the circle after folks entered, making the challenge not actually about entering the circle making it just odd.  But I digress.]

That said, in any group work, you  need some serious trust.  First, do you trust the work about to be done?  Is it in line with your view of what should be done?  Is it being done in a way that does not clash badly with your approach?  If it's not well aligned with your approach, can you suspend your approach for the time?  Do you trust the people who have organized the working, so you can work with their system when it is different than yours?  If it's large public ritual - do you feel that they can control the energy of 150+ sources and knit it into a coherent whole?    Heck, with 150 + people, what are you going to do about your personal shields?  Not all those folks in an open ritual are going to have focused energy.  Some of them might be energetic predators.  Again - what's your real trust level of the folks running the show?  

Next let's look at perfect love and perfect trust in terms of a coven or other small working group of magic users.  Say from 3 up to 25 people that you know well.  Because for ME perfect love and perfect trust has to be based on actually knowing the people involved, or at least knowing the people who vouch for anyone you don't know.

I'm going to digress here a bit.  Loving humanity in general is easy.  Loving individuals is more problematic.  If you know folks well, you're going to know their weaknesses.  Their faults.  Their capacity to focus.  Their capacity to do magic.  Some of these things are going to matter when in a circle.  Some of these things won't matter in a circle.

Most of all - you should be aware of your own weaknesses, faults, capacity to focus, capacity to do magic, etc.  Can you put aside your self-doubt in any areas during your pre-ritual purification to do the work ahead?  If you do your preps, and still find yourself too whatever to do the work - can you trust yourself to keep yourself out of the ritual?  I've been at rituals where folks have done that.  They stayed outside the circle because they could still be supportive even if they felt they couldn't actively contribute to the working.  Sometimes they could go so far as to help with drumming from outside the circle.  But they understood that their energy would not mesh with the purpose so stayed out of the circle themselves.

Do you trust and love the purpose of the ritual?  Can you at least put aside your doubts about it working for the time of the ritual?  I've been involved in World Peace rituals that I felt were considerably too ambitious, but I did a fine job of putting that aside and giving it my all. 

Do you trust the Gods involved, or whatever Spirits you might be working with?  In some rituals coughGoetiacough you might not trust the spirits, but you could have full trust in the system that allows you to work with them safely. 

And now, finally - do you love and trust the members of the group?  Love them as they are.  Trust that they will be who and what they are.  And can you handle that?  At the very least, you have to trust and love them to do the work you are entering.  You  might now trust them enough to do a business deal with them out in the mundane world.  What matters here is that you trust that they will be in the right mindset and put their energy to the working you're going to do.  Are they taking the drugs they should be - I'm almost certainly addicted to the SSRI I take, and it would be totally reasonable for any magical group I'm in to make continued taking it a condition of my working with them.  Are they not taking 'inappropriate' drugs prior to the working?  Or will they show up stoned or high?  If they are -  what does your perfect love and perfect trust ask you to do about that?  If one of the members has 'trouble handing energy' and falls out during EVERY SINGLE INTENSE WORKING - do you stop having them at such workings?  You trust them to be themselves, and you love them.  What's the intersection of things like not handling energy or addiction or whatever and perfect love and perfect trust when what you trust is that they will break down at a crucial point of ritual?

There have been times when my purifications leave me able to focus on the ritual and do my part fully, but the best I can do on 'perfect love and perfect trust' is suspension of non-love.  Since I trust folks to be themselves, and 'themselves' are no more perfect than I am, perfecting that type of trust is something I can do pretty easily.   Love may not be harder to feel - but figuring out the proper loving action sometimes is a challenge.

Even more of a challenge than a knife at my chest.

Frondly, Fern